Not to mention that MIPS is in horrible shape (Hi Stanford!) and SGI is dead several times over. Or that Apple ditched PowerPC. It's getting really, really hard to work with something RISCy. I've heard people call ARM RISC, but its popularity seems to be in people's ability to write indecipherable assembly for it like on x86 and 68k. Seems CISCy enough for me. And you can't really get an ARM workstation.
That said, commoditization doesn't mean that systems people are in any danger. Commodity tools are just as ill-suited for making products out of as ever, and that seems unlikely to change. I've known a lot of companies who are like "hey, we're going to use Linux and not have to spend any money on systems!" They always end up employing somebody who can hack the kernel. They always end up employing somebody who can work on installation and build system. Sometimes they even end up saying "fuck this, let's write our own."
Then again, maybe you weren't trying to bridge the two subjects, but I could see how one might, so.
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That said, commoditization doesn't mean that systems people are in any danger. Commodity tools are just as ill-suited for making products out of as ever, and that seems unlikely to change. I've known a lot of companies who are like "hey, we're going to use Linux and not have to spend any money on systems!" They always end up employing somebody who can hack the kernel. They always end up employing somebody who can work on installation and build system. Sometimes they even end up saying "fuck this, let's write our own."
Then again, maybe you weren't trying to bridge the two subjects, but I could see how one might, so.
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